About Me

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Standing in the balcony leisurely on a lazy sunday evening is a luxury these days.Luxury not because there are less number of evenings or sundays, but because there is less chance that we are not preoccupied with mundane problems.I luckily had this luxury today and adding to it I also had the luxury of watching a female dog (bitch is the right word, but it is widely used for humans than dogs) and its puppy in a playful mood.The dog stood still and was looking here and there as if it was searching its better half while the puppy grabbed her moms leg with her jaws and tried to pull it with all might.When it became too much to take, the dog got rid of puppy's hold and went far from it, but the puppy didn't give up.This time it aimed straight for the neck and i was reminded of one of those popular scenes in Nat Geo in which the tiger/lion/cheetah attacks its prey and holds its throat with its jaws to kill it.The mom got rid of it again and this thing continued for sometime.The whole episode was beautiful to watch and I wondered why dogs too, like humans, become so serious when they grow up.

After about 10 minutes, i got bored of this puppy play.And then started the ugly play of analysis in the theatre of my mind.why did i get bored of something that seemed very beautiful 10 minutes ago.Obviously, constantly watching an object of beauty doesn't make it any less beautiful.The object is still the same. It could be a rose, sunrise, snow peak, whatever, I am sure we will get bored of watching it continuously.why? Is mankind doomed to get bored?

May be we should blame our memory.At our first glance, our mind is completely occupied with what we see, it is in pure 'receiving' mode.It is in the moment.It becomes the moment.But after sometime (which varies from person to person), thanks to the fickleness of our mind,our memory starts functioning.It is as if there are two screens in the theatre , side by side. What our memory saw a moment ago is on one screen and what it is seeing now is on another one.The image on the first screen is compared with that on the second continuously (this comparision starts after those blissful initial moments during which the memory is in a non-functioning state).Or sometimes it might aso happen that there is a third screen in which the mind projects an image from the future, i.e', image from next moment.And when this comparison results in past=present=furture state for considerable length of time, we get bored.It seems mind always seeks something new.But the question of new arises only when the old is remembered and involuntarily/voluntarily recollected(blame the memory again).I am sure novelty appeals more to us than beauty.We can see this in our media frenzy society today, where new faces are shot into limelight instantly and pushed into darkness even more instantly.How do we come out of this cycle of desire-attainment-boredom?

If we can force our mind to concentrate only one one screen,the center one representing present, and ignore the other two, and let them dissolve, then probably we can attain a state of zero boredom.Only if we were capable of it, we would have had a new wife everyday, a new car, a new job, a new life altogether!Whenever we would look into our partner's eyes, it would be first sight, and there would never be a second sight!Hmm..the books say that meditation takes us there. Worth trying, isn't it?